Between Profession and Politics 79
one of the participants of those events, Fedor Liass. Sent from the Institute
of Biophysics to the South Urals in 1950–1951 to run a biophysical laboratory and who subsequently survived the arrest of his mother in the infamous
“Doctor’s Plot,” 63 and after emigrating to Israel, he published a memoir-study
of the trials against Jews. In it, he describes the phenomenon of ambivalence
of the societal and moral atmosphere of the late Stalin period. The duality of
the public consciousness, in which fear and joy, lack of freedom and creative flight coexisted, was especially evident in these memoirs. On the one
hand, he mentions the deep fear on which the repressive Stalinist system was
based, and on the other hand, the normal course of daily and professional life
in the conditions of the unfolding repressions: “All this cuisine, cooked in
the depths of Lubyanka, was naturally unknown to us, who were free. Life
proceeded in its turn. Medical professors were busy with their own business:
they treated the sick, gave lectures, conducted seminars and lived the usual
life that the whole country lived with its worries, anxieties and joys.” 64 The
“normality” of life, as described by Liass, was extremely unstable and disappeared at the first knock at the door by a NKVD officer. In the memoirs
of radiologists, this instability and borderline existence is also described. In
the texts of the doctors who lived in a closed city and worked at a nuclear
enterprise, the “normality” and “abnormality” of social life coexist with each
other, they are the same moments. Thus, the subjects about the discomfort
caused by the deprivation of freedom of movement are replaced by descriptions of the beautiful nature of the Urals, complaints about the suffocating
secrecy flow into admiration for the “communist” spirit of life, into stories
about free and inspiring discussions on complex scientific topics in the FIB-1.
The ambivalence of Soviet life is manifested in the memories of radiologists
in all its brightness and expressiveness.
The questions raised in this chapter are a tiny fragment of a large unwritten story about the experiential dimension of the Soviet nuclear project. The
reconstruction of this story is complicated by many factors – the continued
secrecy of documentary materials, the departure of a generation of atomists
and radiologists who are direct witnesses to the events, and the vigilance
of today’s political elite with respect to this “painful topic” from the past.
However, without the stories related to the actors of biomedical radiology,
the history of the Soviet atomic project and its high risks remain incomplete.
Translated from Russian by Joshua R. Kroeker
Notes
1. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956
(Novosibirsk: Sibirskii khronograf, 1997), 232.
2. The complex of scientific, popular scientific literature, and sources is presented on
Rosatom’s website: http://elib.biblioatom.ru.
3. Cf.: V.N. Novoselov, V.S. Tolstikov, Tainy «sorokovki» (Ekaterinburg: IPP «Uralʹskii
rabochii», 1995); I.A. Bochkareva, “Formirovanie i razvitie sistemy radiatsionnoi
bezopasnosti na Urale v 1945–2011” (PhD. Diss, k.i.n. Chelyabinsk, 2018); V.N.
one of the participants of those events, Fedor Liass. Sent from the Institute
of Biophysics to the South Urals in 1950–1951 to run a biophysical laboratory and who subsequently survived the arrest of his mother in the infamous
“Doctor’s Plot,” 63 and after emigrating to Israel, he published a memoir-study
of the trials against Jews. In it, he describes the phenomenon of ambivalence
of the societal and moral atmosphere of the late Stalin period. The duality of
the public consciousness, in which fear and joy, lack of freedom and creative flight coexisted, was especially evident in these memoirs. On the one
hand, he mentions the deep fear on which the repressive Stalinist system was
based, and on the other hand, the normal course of daily and professional life
in the conditions of the unfolding repressions: “All this cuisine, cooked in
the depths of Lubyanka, was naturally unknown to us, who were free. Life
proceeded in its turn. Medical professors were busy with their own business:
they treated the sick, gave lectures, conducted seminars and lived the usual
life that the whole country lived with its worries, anxieties and joys.” 64 The
“normality” of life, as described by Liass, was extremely unstable and disappeared at the first knock at the door by a NKVD officer. In the memoirs
of radiologists, this instability and borderline existence is also described. In
the texts of the doctors who lived in a closed city and worked at a nuclear
enterprise, the “normality” and “abnormality” of social life coexist with each
other, they are the same moments. Thus, the subjects about the discomfort
caused by the deprivation of freedom of movement are replaced by descriptions of the beautiful nature of the Urals, complaints about the suffocating
secrecy flow into admiration for the “communist” spirit of life, into stories
about free and inspiring discussions on complex scientific topics in the FIB-1.
The ambivalence of Soviet life is manifested in the memories of radiologists
in all its brightness and expressiveness.
The questions raised in this chapter are a tiny fragment of a large unwritten story about the experiential dimension of the Soviet nuclear project. The
reconstruction of this story is complicated by many factors – the continued
secrecy of documentary materials, the departure of a generation of atomists
and radiologists who are direct witnesses to the events, and the vigilance
of today’s political elite with respect to this “painful topic” from the past.
However, without the stories related to the actors of biomedical radiology,
the history of the Soviet atomic project and its high risks remain incomplete.
Translated from Russian by Joshua R. Kroeker
Notes
1. David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939–1956
(Novosibirsk: Sibirskii khronograf, 1997), 232.
2. The complex of scientific, popular scientific literature, and sources is presented on
Rosatom’s website: http://elib.biblioatom.ru.
3. Cf.: V.N. Novoselov, V.S. Tolstikov, Tainy «sorokovki» (Ekaterinburg: IPP «Uralʹskii
rabochii», 1995); I.A. Bochkareva, “Formirovanie i razvitie sistemy radiatsionnoi
bezopasnosti na Urale v 1945–2011” (PhD. Diss, k.i.n. Chelyabinsk, 2018); V.N.